Sunday Morning Coming Down

Ain't nobody's fault (but mine)

White Flag Syndrome, Creeping Authoritarianism, or both?

Victims are made, not born.

Victimhood is a state learned helplessness.  It is nothing more than a state of mind, but a state of mind that bleeds out in every unscripted word and thought.  The more you embrace it, the stronger the mental habit becomes.  The more you distinguish between what is within your power and what is outside it, and regard only that which is within your power as significant, the less the victim you become.  Bill Clinton beat Newt Gingrich, Eisenhower outlasted the John Birch wing of the Republican Party, everyday some kid out there knocks down a bully, the list of human beings choosing courage over victimhood is endless.  If the President is impotent, it is because due to either skill or character, not the fact that he does not control every lever of power in the American state.

The most powerful victim in the free world is still just a victim.  I look forward to his Hawaiian retirement and my opportunity to forget that he exists.

WhatIf Obama Can't Lead?

Two New York Times reporters recently posited for President Obama this grim scenario: Low growth, high unemployment, and growing income inequality become "the new normal" in the nation he leads. "Do you worry," the journalists asked him, "that that could end up being your legacy simply because of the obstruction ... and the gridlock that doesn't seem to end?" Obama's reply was telling. "I think if I'm arguing for entirely different policies and Congress ends up pursuing policies that I think don't make sense and we get a bad result," he said, "it's hard to argue that'd be my legacy." Actually, it's hard to argue that it wouldn't be his legacy. History judges U.S. presidents based upon what they did and did not accomplish. The obstinacy of their rivals and the severity of their circumstances is little mitigation. Great presidents overcome great hurdles. In Obama's case, the modern GOP is an obstructionist, rudderless party often held hostage by extremists. So … get over it. His response to The New York Times is another illustration that Obama and his liberal allies have a limited—and limiting—definition of presidential leadership.
I call it the White Flag Syndrome.

Daniel Henniger of the Wall Street Journal argues that the flying of the white flag is, by intention or reaction, a feint, with the result of a creeping authoritarianism.  If you are righteous and you are a victim, what are you to do but unseat the evil oppressor by any means necessary?  Gridlock and balance of power are different words for the same reality.  We are gridlocked because the American people are divided.  By playing the victim Obama legitimizes the concerns of his opposition.  If they have done nothing morally wrong, other than having a different point of view, you send the likes of Charlie Rangel out to smear them with racial 
epitaphs.

To create public support for so much unilateral authority, Mr. Obama needs to lessen support for the other two branches of government—Congress and the judiciary. He is doing that.Mr. Obama and his supporters in the punditocracy are defending this escalation by arguing that Congress is "gridlocked." But don't overstate that low congressional approval rating. This is the one branch that represents the views of all Americans. It's gridlocked because voters are.

I would like to think that Victim-think is a pathology with no victim other than the individual who indulges in it.  In reality, however, victim-think, imagined or justified, breeds oppressors as the perceived oppression justifies a suspension of virtue in the name of efficacy.  You do not have to be of any particular political persuasion to question whether or not the President is playing with fire.  You can extend the power of the administrative state, but your party will not always control the White House.  Consistent libertarians are a minority in the American electorate.  Every persuasion, however, will see a day when they wish the Chief Executive wielded less power.       

Don't Run Anymore

Friday is here.  The weekend is sprinting in your direction.  Starting today, stop running.  Build the habits necessary to live a life you won't have any reason to be ashamed of, even if it kills you; it will kill you nonetheless.

The nature of daughters

G: Look Dad.  See how far away from you I am!  See how fast I can run!
DW: Yes I see.  Such is the nature of daughters.  Such is the nature of the universe.

Winter is coming

The summer of 2012 was long and fall came as a welcome relief.  Unknown to us then, the next spring would be delayed, with snow well into May.  Add them and divide by two and you get two average years. 

The lesson: at it's conclusion your life may look "average" but that does not account for the the swings that will be encountered while calculating the mean.  Prepare while you can, winter is coming.  Winter is always coming.



Art Bell returning

Art Bell returns to late night radio.  This time on XM/Sirius.  I have to hope their will also be a podcast.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Art Bell, radio's master of the paranormal and outward edges of science, will return to the microphone on Sept. 16 with a new nighttime show on Sirius XM Radio.

Bell was one of radio's top syndicated voices in the 1990s before walking away from his nightly show in 2002 due to family issues. He worked occasionally after that but hasn't been on the air since Halloween 2010.

"I missed it terribly," said Bell, 68, whose weeknight show will air live from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. ET. Sirius is building a studio at Bell's rural Nevada home where he will work.

A Sirius representative contacted Bell through social media a few months ago, leading to the formation of his show, "Art Bell's Dark Matter." He'll talk about things like UFOs, ghosts, near-death experiences and weird aspects of science. He'll do interviews and take calls from viewers.

I, Claudius

Overheard:

The key moral I learned from I, Claudius as a child of eight or nine, was, regardless of your assessment of another, to always be polite.  You never know who will become the next emperor and, consequently, have the authority to remove your head from your shoulders.

Carolina Chocolate Drops: Country Girl

Why didn't any of you hip young people tell me about this group?  Have you been holding out on me?

Mercury Dime

I stopped checking my change about fifteen years ago but the nagging little voice said these tokens were different. "Probably, just some Canadian crap," the frontal lobe retorted and out the door I ran. Twelve hours later I am sitting in a meeting and hand drifts into pocket, touches coins, and again NLV requests an investigation. As voices droned frontal lobe relented with a sigh, "It's not like I have anything else to do."

Momentary confusion gave way to joy as frontal lobe processed what eyes reported. I hadn't stumbled across a silver quarter since Bush Sr. was President and never, at least never since I was aware enough to collect them, had I happened upon a "Mercury dime." Thank you nagging little voice. Turns out that breakfast sandwich I bought was free.

 

Distraction,

it's more than when your kids interrupt you five times in ten minutes

You can talk about your evangelists,
you can talk about Mr. Ford too.
Ol' Henry shakin' more Hell outta folks,
then all the evangelists do.

The forecast calls for more lambs to be born late Wednesday afternoon through early Friday morning.

Feel Good Story of the Day

Feel good story of the day via Drudge:

Clerk punches out would be robber.  Makes him clean up his own blood.

HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. -- A clerk at a business in Western North Carolina punched a would-be robber and knocked him out cold just minutes after the man barged in with a gun and demanded money.

...Mothershead said the man came behind the counter with a bag.
“I got the money and he had the bag out and instead of putting it in the bag I stuck it out and said, 'Just take it.' So, when he reached out, I took a step in, I cocked back and preloaded and I hit him hard,” Mothershead told News 4's Mike McCormick.

...While they waited for police and paramedics, Mothershead gave the man a roll of power towels, sprayed the floor with cleaner and told him to clean up his own blood.

It is well worth following the link to watch the video.  More than just knocking the guy out, he knocked him out with a left.

I have a man crush on the clerk.  If I had a sister, I'd see about setting them up on a date.

The bloodied crook got two things out of the experience: a free portrait and a lesson in natural consequences.

The Welfare-Warfare State

Continuing with yesterday's theme David Brooks chirps in on the problems we face and the institutions that need to be reformed.  Oligarchic corporations are one half of the problem but the other is comprised of the redistributionist-government worker complex: those who receive benefits of government spending and those who make their livelihoods as tools of that redistribution.  This is not to say that these institutions or the people who run them are evil (as the left-wing trope would characterize calls for reform) or that they should disappear (another oft-proffered straw man) but a call for sober assessment and reform. 

 The members of the Obama administration have many fine talents, but making adept historical analogies may not be among them.

When the administration came to office in the depths of the financial crisis, many of its leading figures concluded that the moment was analogous to the Great Depression. They read books about the New Deal and sought to learn from F.D.R.

But, in the 1930s, people genuinely looked to government to ease their fears and restore their confidence. Today, Americans are more likely to fear government than be reassured by it.

According to a Gallup survey, 64 percent of Americans polled said they believed that big government is the biggest threat to the country. Only 26 percent believed that big business is the biggest threat. As a result, the public has reacted to Obama’s activism with fear and anxiety. The Democrats lost 63 House seats in the 2010 elections.

Everything else is building up for the Iowa caucuses in a week and the news is slow in anticipation. 

If you're looking for something a little more intellectual let me recommend this classic essay from 1967 which identifies the problem not as the "welfare state" or the "warfare state" but the "welfare-warfare state" which rewards corporations and the self-appointed guardians of the poor at a cost to society as a whole.  It is as timely today as it was 44 years ago.

The Great Society is the lineal descendant and the intensification of those other pretentiously named policies of 20th-century America: the Square Deal, the New Freedom, the New Era, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and the New Frontier. All of these assorted Deals constituted a basic and fundamental shift in American life — a shift from a relatively laissez-faire economy and minimal state to a society in which the state is unquestionably king.[1]

In the previous century, the government could safely have been ignored by almost everyone; now we have become a country in which the government is the great and unending source of power and privilege. Once a country in which each man could by and large make the decisions for his own life, we have become a land where the state holds and exercises life-and-death power over every person, group, and institution. The great Moloch government, once confined and cabined, has burst its feeble bonds to dominate us all.

I think I'll break the monotony with some creative destruction to fix a closet and the floors in one of the bedrooms: pictures to follow.

Don't Worry. We'll build it again.

Don't worry.  We'll build it again.

Robert Samuelson is quickly becoming a favorite commentator of mine.  His no non-sense analysis, as opposed to the oft partisan prescriptions offered by other professional critics, is refreshing and helpful to those of us more interested in crafting a society that works rather than winning a fight.  Today's exemplar is no different.

WASHINGTON -- There are moments when our political system, whose essential job is to mediate conflicts in broadly acceptable and desirable ways, is simply not up to the task. It fails. This may be one of those moments. What we learned in 2011 is that the frustrating and confusing budget debate may never reach a workable conclusion. It may continue indefinitely until it's abruptly ended by a severe economic or financial crisis that wrenches control from elected leaders.
We are shifting from "give away politics" to "take away politics." Since World War II, presidents and Congresses have been in the enviable position of distributing more benefits to more people without requiring ever-steeper taxes. Now, this governing formula no longer works, and politicians face the opposite: taking away -- reducing benefits or raising taxes significantly -- to prevent government deficits from destabilizing the economy. It is not clear that either Democrats or Republicans can navigate the change.

Authors Neil Howe and William Strauss in their book The Fourth Turning (published 1997) have laid out a perspective on this unwinding of a settled political order that they term "unraveling" which occurs every 70 to 90 years.  The last time one order unraveled and another was built was through the Great Depression ending in the current "give away politics."  The previous unraveling/building was the Civil War and Reconstruction period.  Four score and seven years before that was the order resulting from the American revolution and Constitutional Congress.  

The changes we face in the coming decades is as likely to be as great as any of those that went before.  Whether they are as bloody depends upon us.  If the vested interests (corporations and recipients of income "redistributions") act like the slaveholders of two crises past and dig in their heels, it may be.  If they yield, like the industrial barons before FDR, then the violence can remain electoral and largely metaphorical.

Regardless, time keeps slipping into the future and the time is short to finish preparing to play our parts as individuals and members of communities during the decades of transitions before us.  Nothing insures individuals from extremism like a place of refuge in the midst of a storm.  History itself is too much for one individual or family guide but we can determine our role and place within history.  Communities can also determine their place within the broader narrative.  If a consensus grows, so can nations.

In other post-Christmas news the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries will be upon us soon and a season of electoral news will be unrelenting.

A users guide to Iowa and New Hampshire offered by the New Republic:

The Republican field is crowded and fluid right now, but it won’t be for long. By January 11th, there will be at most three remaining contenders, and we’ll have a much clearer understanding of how the race will develop.

There are seven candidates with a pulse, and only six of them—divided into two groups of three—are competing in Iowa. For two of the three denizens of the lower tier—Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum—failing to finish among the top three on January 3rd would spell the effective end of their candidacies. The third—Rick Perry—would probably have enough money left to stagger on to New Hampshire, but with the prospect of eventual success even further reduced from its current low level.

A Democrat, optimistically, foresees a repeat of Bush v. Gore:

The 2012 presidential race will be decided in a dozen swing states, and President Obama faces a hard road to victory in many of them.

“It appears this election will be much more like Bush-Gore” in 2000, said Democratic strategist Steve McMahon, co-founder of Alexandria-based Purple Strategies. “The president ain’t gonna win by 95 electoral votes.”

In a development that creates mixed feelings in me, Newt Gingrich also sees this election in terms of epochal change and conflict.  If only his character and temperament were not so unpredictable, I'd have my candidate for 2012.  Maybe he'll wind up Energy Secretary or chief speech writer in a Romney administration.

WASHINGTON -- At a moment when the nation wonders whether politicians can agree on anything, here is something that unites the Republican presidential candidates -- and all of them with President Obama: Everyone agrees that the 2012 election will be a turning point involving one of the most momentous choices in American history.
True, candidates (and columnists) regularly cast the impending election as the most important ever. Campaigning last week in Pella, Iowa, Republican Rick Santorum acknowledged as much. But he insisted that this time, the choice really was that fundamental. "The debate," he said, "is about who we are."

 Speaking not far away in Mount Pleasant, Newt Gingrich went even further, and was more specific. "This is the most important election since 1860," he said, "because there's such a dramatic difference between the best food-stamp president in history and the best paycheck candidate." Thus did Gingrich combine historic sweep with a cheap and inaccurate attack. Nonetheless, it says a great deal that Gingrich chose to reach all the way back to the election that helped spark the Civil War.

New political orders can, I suppose, look a lot like those of the past.  Whatever else we might think of Ron Paul, he is the one Republican candidate which seems to garner support from both extremes of the current divide.  What remains is a catalyst to make him palatable to the vast middle.  Personally, I like his views.  I'm still, however, trying to overcome my fear of change before I could embrace a newly isolationist America.

In this year's GOP presidential track meet it seems that everyone gets a turn in front -- and this week Ron Paul is the lucky candidate. While still trailing in the national race numbers, recent poll results from Iowa suggest that, two weeks until caucus day, Paul has jumped into the lead there ahead of the water-treading Mitt Romney and the sinking Newt Gingrich.

Paul brings a unusual set of views to the Republican presidential sweepstakes -- on almost every core national security and foreign-policy issue he holds a position that is in fierce opposition to the views of mainstream Republicans.

Indeed, his entire philosophy is largely a renunciation of much of what Republicans believe about America's role in the world. He questions the popular notion of American exceptionalism and has argued in his recently published book, Liberty Defended, that the "United States is an empire by any definition, and quite possibly the most aggressive, extended, and expansionist in the history of the world." This is the kind of language that might cause Ronald Reagan to roll over in his grave.

Jon Huntsman is frequently observed as getting every issue right but can not seem to get his moment in the media spotlight.  I guess this just goes to show that life never deviates too far from Jr. High.  The bad boys get the girls and the class clowns get the attention.  The rich kids get encouraged to advanced placement and the quiet "good" kids gets to sit in the back, reading an encyclopedia for fun.  Whoops, am I projecting again?

Three years after the near implosion of the economy, the nation’s largest banks continue to exist as financial skyscrapers on the landscape, their collapse threatening to rain destruction on all the lesser players. The memory of that frightening September, when then-President George W. Bush was told by advisers that immediate government intervention was necessary, may be fading already. Yet the threat of the bankruptcy or near-bankruptcy of a handful of banks and insurance companies continues as the nation’s economy slowly recovers.

Among the abiding disagreements in my marriage is the role of the full moon in the number and severity of hospital admissions.  If your year did not involve enough math or you want another demonstration of a yes/no questions answered with a statistical "it depends," perhaps this series of blog posts from the Guardian is for you.

I was a particularly cowardly child. I'm not such a brave adult either, but the subjects of my cowardice have changed somewhat. As an adult I'm more scared of losing my job in a recession or having my identity stolen on the internet. As a child, I was terrified of werewolves. Every full moon I would worry about being on the wrong end of gnashing, razor-sharp teeth.
Of course I shouldn't have been any more worried when there was a full moon than on any other night. Or should I? A classic article in the British Medical Journal sought to answer a similar question: are crime rates higher when there's a full moon?

Science is all about formulating and testing hypotheses. In this case the hypothesis would be: "Crime rates are higher when there's a full moon." Often, scientists set out to test the "null hypothesis": the default statement that, if true, would indicate that their experiment had not detected any real effect. In the case in question, the null hypothesis could be expressed as: "There is no difference in crime rates when there is a full moon compared with other nights."
The problem with data like crime rates is that it contains random noise – patterns can appear and disappear by chance alone. So we first need to ask ourselves how sure we want to be that there is a real difference between crime rates on a full moon and those on any other night. Quite sure? Fairly sure? Almost certain?

2012: The world will not end but it may seem like it.

There must be no greater form of self-effacing humor than the making of predictions.  Nothing, except perhaps the reviewing of the last years resolutions, causes more humility than looking back at what one thought would happen the prior year.  This is why I generally stick to my oft heard refrain, "I don't know and neither do you" but what fun is that?

So, looking forward to the humiliation to come, my predictions for 2012: The world will not end but it may seem like it.

1.  The Chinese property bubble finally pops spreading financial carnage far and wide.  Banks through out Asia will feel the pain first and, as the second and third order effects become apparent, the rest of the world.  As China unwinds I would expect the price of all commodities to fall through the floor.  Gold, Silver, oil, rare earths, metals and anything else you can think of should become cheaper, renewing talk of deflation.

On-going unemployment (at 9% by year end 2012) in the United States MAY result in your own paycheck decreasing.  If wage deflation does begin, we will have to give renewed attention to those who are worried about an extended period of economy wide deflation.  By December 2012, however, I think we'll be back to worrying about inflation in the United States.

2.  Decreased demand in Asian and Europe plus a soft winter in the United States will cause oil prices to fall significantly.  I will be able to buy diesel for 2.00 a gallon over the course of the year.  For the year the oil high price will be 109.83, low will be 42.15 and on Dec 31, 2012 the price will be on its way back up (the decline of cheap oil will still dominate the price trend) at 84.16.

3.  Mitt Romney will be the safe "John Kerry Candidate " of the GOP.  He will choose a governor from the mid-west (Tim Pawlenty, Mitch Daniel or Scott Walker) as his running mate.  Who wins in a Romney v Obama race is up in the air.  It comes down to one question, Is David Axelrod as effective as Karl Rove?  I suspect not and so I think we will be complaining about a President Romney soon enough but even I'm not foolish enough to predict it.

4.  OWS will continue but with less effect.  The movement born of a self-important impulse to do what ever it takes to "be heard" (i.e. make the news) will continue to escalate as moderating influences drift (or run) away and the righteous core screams for attention and affirmation.  Americans as a whole want to know what a movement is for, not only what it is against and the vague answers and growing militancy of OWS will strike Americans cold.


5.  The Euro will cease to continue as we know it.  There are three or four ways this whole thing could go down and I have no insight as to which way the cookie will crumble.  I am willing to predict, however, that crumbling ceases being a threat in 2012 and becomes a reality.

The Major Wildcard which could throw all these predictions into dis-array?  The Persian Gulf.  A war in the Persian Gulf would hasten the collapse of the Chinese giant but would remove all the benefits of creative destruction that would otherwise be made available to the world economy.  Oil prices would be high and fluctuating and oil is used in the manufacture and transportation of everything.  A President Obama could ride a wave of patriotism to a second-term (if the gods of war favor him).  OWS could find a new lease on life in a war to be against.  Who knows, the bond markets might even be distracted for a time granting Europe a few month reprieve.

What ever the Macro-events of 2012 may be, let us work to make our microcosms places of joy and friendship.  Make your own bailout by paying off debts and you will find yourself less concerned about inflation, deflation or the price of the drive to work.  Organize a home pantry so you can buy in bulk when items are on sale and have a cushion for whatever life throws at you.  Begin raising some portion of your own food and feel the empowerment which flows from doing.